Occupy Oakland protesters to join Occupy Cal action Tuesday

By Theresa Harrington and Hannah DreierOakland Tribune

Posted:
11/14/2011 03:36:49 AM PST

Updated:
11/14/2011 11:41:01 PM PST

OAKLAND -- The evening wound down quietly Monday at the former Occupy Oakland camp in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, but protesters vowed to reconvene Tuesday and join a larger Occupy protest planned at University of California, Berkeley.

At one point, as many as 600 people had crowded into the plaza, hours after an early morning raid cleared more than 100 tents from the area in front of City Hall. The police action was peaceful, but 33 people were arrested; most were released hours later.

Occupy Oakland protesters said they will hold a general assembly Wednesday to discuss next steps, which could include a vote on whether to pitch more tents.

More immediately, protesters said they will march around noon Tuesday to UC Berkeley to join a student strike and teach-in on campus, where tensions remain high from an Occupy protest last week. Students rallying against tuition increases and budget cuts attempted to set up tents near Sproul Plaza, where the Free Speech Movement was born at Cal, but police broke up the tents. Officers are being criticized for their use of force while breaking up the protest, after videos were posted online of police using batons on students who had linked arms to try to protect the encampment.

Students last week said they would try to re-establish the tents Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in Oakland, a second, smaller camp at Snow Park, near Lake Merritt, is so far undisturbed. Some of the campers there moved over from Ogawa Plaza.

Interim Chief Howard Jordan has said that camp will also be cleared, but the timing is unknown.

Ogawa Plaza continued to be the center of action Monday for the Occupy Oakland movement following a 5 a.m. police raid on the tents that had been pitched there for a month. Hundreds later gathered at the Oakland public library and marched back to the plaza.

Several marchers said they would like to reoccupy City Hall.

"What I'm hoping is we're going right back in the plaza," said Kerie Campbell, 47, who has been a part of the encampment since it started.

Police have said people are free to gather in the plaza, but camping or sleeping there would not be allowed.

"We really don't have any reason to keep people out of the plaza," Jordan said at an afternoon news conference. "It's a public space."

Jordan said the city would remove barriers and allow protesters to enter the plaza in an effort to "reduce tensions." He said demonstrators have a right to protest there.

When asked what would happen if people started setting up tents again, Jordan said, "We will deal with the issue of lodging as it occurs."

The decision to clear the camp, however, brought more challenges for Mayor Jean Quan, who lost two members of her executive team Monday. Her longtime friend and legal adviser, Dan Siegel, resigned because the pair were at odds over the handling of the camp; hours later, Deputy Mayor Sharon Cornu also resigned, effective immediately.

The evening's events started about 4 p.m., when dozens gathered for a rally at the main branch of the Oakland Public Library on 14th Street, a few blocks from the plaza. The group that marched to the plaza was smaller than one on Oct. 25, after police raided and cleared out the original Occupy encampment at City Hall. That night, protesters bent of reclaiming the plaza clashed with police, who fired tear-gas and less-than-lethal projectiles into the crowd. One man, Scott Olsen, 24, of Daly City, suffered a skull fracture when witnesses say he was struck in the head with a tear-gas canister.

Aside from the 32 arrested when the camp was cleared, police arrested one man later in the afternoon after he threw down a barricade and spat at officers. He was taken to a hospital for psychiatric observation.

At its high point, Monday's action and subsequent rallies attracted hundreds, on both sides of the occupy movement.

Oakland resident Paul Benton Sr., 53, wore a hat with the message: "Leave my city in peace. Unoccupy Oakland." Benton, who has lived in the city 35 years, said he agreed with the protesters' sentiments, but that their actions were damaging the city.

"Their message is heartfelt," Benton said. "But the way they're going about it -- destroying what little is left in Oakland -- that makes me very sad."

Brad Newsham, on the other hand, believed the protesters should not back down. The 60-year-old Oakland resident carried a "Re-Occupy Oakland" sign.

Newsham said he had attended Occupy Movement protests in his hometown and San Francisco since they began.

"The powers that be in these buildings around us would like nothing more than for us to go back to sleep so that the travesty can accelerate and continue," he said.

Jack Radey, from Eugene, Ore., said he decided to check out the protests while visiting the city. The 64-year-old said he took part in the Free Speech Movement and anti-Vietnam War protests in the 1960s.

Hours earlier, lines of police in riot gear closed in around 5 a.m. on hundreds of protesters who had gathered at the plaza in anticipation of eviction.

By the time Mayor Jean Quan toured the area two hours later, there was nothing to see but collapsed tents and abandoned signs.

The night before, Quan's chief legal adviser, Dan Siegel, resigned, citing his disagreement with the coming raid. Quan did not appear at the afternoon news conference.

Many occupiers had packed up their tents before the eviction, disheartened but vowing to return for the rally in front of the main branch of the Oakland Public Library. Protesters chanted and played drums in the intersection of Broadway and 14th Street as police staged for the action.

"It feels pretty sad because we built a community here, and now they can just come and destroy it," said Lara Bitar, 28, as she helped collapse the camp's "intifada tents" early Monday morning. "At the same time, this movement is about more than just the space here."

Oakland's call for mutual aid to clear out the camp cost between $300,000 and $500,000, Jordan said. Law enforcement officers from Hayward, Fremont, Richmond, San Leandro, San Mateo, San Francisco, San Jose, Gilroy, Burlingame, Alameda County, Santa Clara County and BART were seen participating in the sweep.

Jordan said mutual aid was on standby for the afternoon and evening, but the city wouldn't need to pay if it enlisted help from other agencies tonight, since the morning raid was planned, but any later activity would be considered an emergency.

The city dipped into its $30 million reserve to pay for the aid, said City Administrator Deanna Santana.

Late Sunday, an email from an unknown source circulated among campers warned: "Expect to see overwhelming use of force by police directed to occupiers who refuse to comply."

Many feared a repetition of the nighttime clashes that followed an early morning takedown of the camp on Oct. 25. But the Monday action remained peaceful, with no injuries reported.

Over the weekend, as the city issued repeated eviction notices and rumors of an early morning raid intensified, some occupiers relocated to other encampments or simply packed up their tents. By the time police pressed into the camp, in lines three officers deep, few occupiers remained.

As a helicopter hovered overhead, shining a light and announcing an order to evacuate, police arrested nearly three dozen people who practiced peaceful resistance.

Among those were 14 protesters who had been praying for hours behind a semicircle of candles in the "interfaith tent," planning to be arrested.

"Our plan is to remain here," said the Rev. Kurt A. Kuhwald, a Unitarian Universalist minister, as police began to surround the plaza.

Nearby protesters yelled "The British are coming! The British are coming" as police officers marched up a wide alleyway, one of several that lead to the plaza from nearby streets. But the people inside the interfaith tent remained calm. The group planned on being arrested in a peaceful act of civil disobedience. They sang "We Shall Overcome" while submitting to arrest.

Many of the people who were the last holdouts in the plaza expected to be arrested, while others battled anxiety about what could happen.

"I'm trying to remove all emotion from my thinking, to just think really logically," said Hayward resident and Cal State East Bay student Kevin Shields, 18, as he stared up into the night sky. Like many campers, he eventually decided to leave as police ordered all occupiers to get out or be arrested.

Bicycle mechanic Brandon Walsh, 33, was calm as he prepared for arrest.

"I'd prefer not to be," Walsh said, "but I'm not going to leave."

The Oakland resident had not been living at the camp, but wanted to do something to support Occupy Oakland and its battle against economic disparities.

"I have the privilege of having a voice and the luxury to do something with it," Walsh said.

After dismantling tents and closing off the camp, police declared the area a crime scene. City workers threw items from the camp into two large dump trucks as more than a dozen protesters continued to congregate at the corner of 14th and Broadway, standing in front of about a dozen police officers who were behind metal fences. Some protesters were giving TV interviews, while others sat in a prayer circle.

A tired-looking Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said at a morning news conference that she was "relieved" that the police raid on the camp was peaceful. The camp had put the city's resources to the test and placed a "tremendous strain" on all departments, she said.

She said that the camp had "hurt the quality of life in Oakland," and noted that 179 calls to 911 that didn't get answered because police were responding to demonstrators last week.

She implored protesters not to be destructive.

Quan, along with the City Council and the business community, has made numerous requests to the campers in recent weeks to leave the plaza. These pleas intensified last week after a young man was shot and killed just outside the camp's borders.

Police identified the victim Sunday as Kayode O. Foster, a 25-year-old Oakland man who had been spending time at the encampment.

With the city's most populated Occupy encampment closed, some campers joined other smaller camps at Snow Park, at 20th and Harrison streets, or the encampment in front of the Veterans Memorial Building, at the intersection of Harrison Street and Grand Avenue.

As the sun rose over Snow Park near Lake Merritt, Andre Little, 38, said he expected to be evicted soon.

"But we'll come back," said Little, who has been with the Oakland movement since it began a month ago.

Later in the day, Jordan said police planned to remove about 26 campers at Snow Park, but he wouldn't say when or how. By early afternoon, camp had grown to more than 40 tents.